Something More Than Human

People often ask me why I'm so obsessed with cycling.  What it is that draws me to this sport that is nothing but 6 hours of spinning the pedals on a bike?  With three weeks of non-stop cycling before my eyes, I had plenty of time to think about my answer.

And it's the quality of the human spirit in these athletes that I love.  These guys are riding hard every day for 21 days, and yet every day they still have the passion to ride harder than the day before.  Being Australian, one of the traits we value most is hardiness, endurance, that utter tenacity of the soul where you can't give up but instead just keep soldiering on despite all the odds.  We call it the ANZAC Spirit, and we value it above almost all else in people.

These men have that spirit, the GC riders most of all.  Thomas Voeckler is a beautiful example of why I love this sport - he predicted three times over the course of this year's Tour de France that he would lose his yellow jersey at the end of the stage.  Maybe it was a defeatist attitude, or maybe he was just being a realist, but every time, something in Thomas just wouldn't let him give up.  We could all see the grit and determination that made him keep on going, every inch of it clear in the utter pain on his face, somewhere inside himself finding the ability to keep on going despite all else and do something that human beings should not be able to do - be superhuman.

Watching Johnny Hoogerland also had that feeling, but this time the whole world could feel it.  We could see the streams of blood running in rivulets down his legs as he rode to the finish of that horrific stage where he became so intimately acquainted with a barbed-wire fence.  We could see and feel his pain, and yet he clambered out, was back on the bike and began riding after the breakaway.  He needed 33 stitches afterwards, but he was still putting his body and his mind through agony to keep going when any normal person would have collapsed in a sobbing, bleeding heap by the side of that road.  These men have some celestial ability to transcend normal human limits and go beyond, time and again, to be heroes, legends and champions - glimpses of the heights to which humanity can ascend.

And of course, our golden boy, Cadel.  When his bike broke down riding up Alpe d’Huez with Andy and Alberto, everyone thought he’d lost the Tour de France.  Even I was dubious.  Trying to make up a minute and half on the world’s top climbers racing up a mountain is almost foolhardy in its impossibility.  It’s like running after a car – you’re never gonna get there, unless you can fly.  And Cadel Evans showed us he can.  He achieved with ease what we were all saying was impossible, and yet every time we apply the word ‘impossible’ to something these men do, they find a way to prove us wrong again.  It was the feat of a winner and a champion – and now he’s both.

Just like the Greeks who lived near Mount Olympus, catching glimpses of the gods from time to time, this proximity to greatness touches us all.  There is something inspirational about the men who possess this magical ability to be more than they are, just for a little while.  The 6 hours of mindless pedalling merely gives us the context so we can truly appreciate when they have one of these man-as-god Olympian moments.  It is the humanity in cycling that draws me - and the proof that sometimes, if we only try hard enough, for just a little while we can be something more than human.

Stage 12 - Cugnaux => Luz-Ardiden

There is a saying amongst the riders when they reach the Pyrenees - "Le Tour commence aujourd'hui" ("The Tour starts today"), and they would be right.  This is the reason I have been waiting so eagerly for the mountains in the Tour de France - it's where you get to separate the boys from the men, find out who is in good form and who's not, and you can finally tell who's serious about winning the Tour de France.

As expected on such as auspicious day there was a certain amount of chaos from people attacking, falling back, being caught and dropping off, but being the mountains there are only so many riders who can truly handle them, and it wasn't as hard as it sometimes is to keep track of who was where.  The drama (and the television coverage!) started at 80 kilometres from the finish.  As usual there was a breakaway out the front - this time it was Geraint Thomas from Team Sky leading it, Laurent Mangel from Saur-Sojasun, Blel Kadri of AG2R and Ruben Perez of Euskaltel-Euskadi, as well as Jose Ivan Gutierrez (Movistar) and Jeremy Roy (FDJ) for the umpteenth time, all seven or eight minutes ahead of the peloton.

Meanwhile the sprinters were gathering themselves up for the last goodbye - the final green jersey points before the mountains where they would be relegated to the autobus, the group of non-mountain-loving sprinters just trying to get over the finish before the elimination time.  Though the highest points had already been taken the breakaway, the sprinters still took their chances, and it was really no surprise to anyone that it was Mark Cavendish who took the maximum remaining points, followed by teammates Gossie and Renshaw.  The two picked up more points to increase the gap between Cav and his nearest rivals for the green jersey, Philippe Gilbert and Jose Joaquin Rojas, who followed the HTC boys across the line.  After that it was the back of the pack and the autobus for these guys.

It was on the first climb of the day, the Category 1 Hourquette d'Ancizan, that the first move came.  King of the Mountains Johnny Hoogerland, soon followed by first Sylvain Chavanel and then Roman Kreuziger, raced on ahead in the hopes of winning enough extra polka-dot jersey points to keep his hold on the KOM jersey.  While Hoogerland soon reappeared in the peloton's radar, and even Chavanel eventually came home thanks to the relentless riding of the main bunch, Kreuziger went right off and was at one point within 30 seconds of the leading riders, though he never bridged the gap and fell off the back like all the rest as the climbs reached their steepest.

Out the front the lead group was collasping, as Geraint Thomas decided he was better off alone and made it happen.  Thomas had been wearing the white jersey of the best young rider until the crash of team leader Brad Wiggins, where the team stopped to see if the injured Brit could continue and Thomas lost several minutes on his rivals.  Jeremy Roy soon decided that he didn't like left behind and dragged himself up to form the leading pair, leading the race until part-way up Luz-Ardiden, the final hors-categorie (outside classification) climb of the day.

The peloton were having fun too.  Geraint Thomas had earlier had problems on one of the corners - he braked, caused his back wheel to lock and went skidding off the side of the road on a downhill.  Thankfully dodging between the parked cars and falling off his bike before the pair took the short cut down the mountain, he remounted and continued the descent, only to go skidding off the road again at the next corner!  Swapping bikes (there was mud on his wheels from the first incident that caused the second one), Thomas continued the cautious descent, while team staff advised their riders to beware Thomas' issues.  But at that self-same corner Thomas Voeckler also locked his back wheel and crashed gently into one of the parked cars, before turning his bike and heading downhill again.  Other riders weren't so lucky, hitting the deck in the middle of the corner and forcing the peloton around them. No injuries more serious than scrapes and bruises, though.

The peloton continued up the first hors-categorie climb of the Col de Tourmalet, Leopard Trek setting a grueling pace, while two or three different breakaway groups formed and faded away, the only one that never came back being that of Olympic champion Samuel Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Omega Pharma-Lotto unknown Jelle Vanendert.  The peloton slowly grew smaller up the climb, riders like Jens Voigt and Stuey O'Grady sacrificing themselves completely under orders from the Schleck brothers.  By the time they were one-third of the way up Luz-Ardiden it had paid off.  While Sanchez and Vanendert were still a minute or so ahead, the only other riders left were the Schlecks, Cadel Evans, Alberto Contador, Damiano Cunego, leader of Team Lampre, Ivan Basso and teammate Sylvester Smyzd, who was likewise ordered to pick up the pace, and yellow jersey-wearer Thomas Voeckler and teammate Pierre Rolland (Europcar).  The octet paced each other up, watching for the moves, until Andy and Frank pulled the old one-two on the rest, Andy feinting before Frank pulled away and made a move.  The second time Frank went none followed, so the Luxembourg national champion chased down the two leaders and finished just behind Jelle Vanendert, who didn't have the legs to beat Sanchez to the stage win.  Meanwhile the other six, Sylvester Smyzd now having been dropped, continued on up to the high finish, and everyone was surprised to see Andy, Cadel and Basso round the corner without Contador, who eventually finish eight seconds behind.

The general classification is now in disarray, Thomas Voeckler with less of a gap after finishing 30 seconds behind Frank Schleck, who has now leapfrogged Cadel into second place thanks to his breakaway attempt.  Contador, while now ahead of almost everyone else in the GC, is even further behind the riders who really matter - Frank, Andy, Cadel, and even Ivan and Damiano.  Cavendish retains the green jersey, as does Voeckler his yellow, while Sanchez stole the King of the Mountains jersey at the top of Luz-Ardiden, and the white jersey is now being sported by young FDJ rider Arnold Jeannesson, who managed to follow the big names right up the mountain to finish in 13th place.  Oddly enough, Jeannesson was only trying to improve himself in the general classification, and regarded the maillot blanc as a sort of extra benefit on the side!

Stage 10 - Aurillac => Carmaux

Finally, a 'good' stage on the Tour de France - because no-one crashed out!  It's a little bit sad that this should be dubbed a 'good' stage and not a 'normal' stage on the Tour.  While there was a crash, it was comparatively small, and everyone got up and rode away.  One of the 'uninjured' teams in yesterday's round-up is also off that list now - Leopard Trek had their first piece of bad luck when several of their riders when down in a crash 11 kilometres from the start of the stage, but apart from a few scrapes and bruises all are well.

But that crash was the incentive for the breakaway, using the moment of confusion to leap off the front of the peloton.  Saur-Sojasun's Anthony Delaplace was up there again, along with Remy Di Gregorio from Astana, another team that has changed tactics to breakaways after losing their team leader, and four other riders.   Newbie Marco Marcato (Vacansoleil) made his prescence felt, taking all the King of the Mountains points to prevent anyone else encroaching upon the lead of his teammate Johnny Hoogerland in that competition.

The peloton raced through the intermediate sprint, Mark Cavendish once again showing his dominance in that discipline, before settling itself into a steady rhythm with HTC-Highroad and Europcar making the pace.  They were later joined by the teams of the sprinters such as Omega and Garmin to try and bring the breakaway back before the sprint finish of the stage.

They reeled in the breakaway with around 30 kilometres to go, Marcato trying to hang on until he'd crossed the final time and claimed the final mountain points. But the peloton was too strong riding uphill, and collected the 27-year-old, who won himself the red number of the most combative rider for his efforts.

It wasn't until around 10 kilometres from the finish that anyone made their move.  The golden boy of this year's Tour, Belgian Philippe Gilbert, raced off the front of the peloton, along with the Tour leader Thomas Voeckler, Cofidis' Tony Gallopin, Quickstep's Dries Devenyns and Tony Martin of HTC-Highroad, who was 6th in the GC.  This caused a bit of panic for the peloton, who didn't like the thought of Martin, Voeckler or Gilbert quite so far ahead, even when 'far' constitutes 11 seconds, so there was some frantic pace-making from the teams of the leaders which saw them finally reeled in around five kilometres from the end.

Then the sprinters began to come forward, HTC's lead-out train taking prominence despite being shorter than usual - Matty Goss, Bernhard Eisel and Mark Renshaw were dropped on the climb up the last hill.  This meant that Mark Cavendish went for the sprint from further back than usual.  Appearing from behind the wheel of a Liquigas-Cannondale rider, the Manxman went like crazy as usual, Omega Pharma-Lotto sprinter Andre Greipel on his wheel.  In the last 100 metres Greipel came up beside Cavendish, and finally had his victory over his rival by pipping Cav for the win by a wheel.  Thor Hushovd also made it over the climbs to finish fourth in the stage.

Stage 9 - Issoire => Saint-Flour

I wrote on Facebook a few days ago that we'd probably have the final standings of the Tour by day 10, and that the winner this year would be the one guy still on his bike by the time we reached Paris. It's beginning to look scarily like it's coming true, and for the most horrible of reasons.

It seems all I write about these days is crashes in the Tour de France, but this year's race has really and truly been defined by these incidents. While crashes are normal - indeed, expected - in any bike race, this year seems to have been particularly bad. With the death of Wouter Weylandt in the Giro and Team Movistar rider Juan Mauricio Soler left in a coma after a crash in the Tour de Suisse, the horrific accidents at the Tour are made all the more scary. Three teams (Sky, Astana and Omega-Pharma Lotto) are now left without their main GC contendors, two other teams (Quickstep and Radioshack) look set to go the same way, and the only team that seems to have been no riders who've hit the asphalt is Team Leopard Trek, of the Schleck brothers.

So today was no different - after the peloton crossed the first of the 7 climbs of the stage, the Category 3 Cote de Massiac, a breakaway finally managed to form, sprinting off the front to build up a lead of around about five minutes. It was almost surprising that the peloton let this six-man breakaway escape, given the strength of the riders in it - Spanish time-trial champion Luis Leon Sanchez (Euskaltel-Euskadi), former yellow jersey-wearer Thomas Voeckler (Europcar), former polka dot-jersey wearer Johnny Hoogerland (Vacansoleil), as well as Niki Terpstra (Quickstep), Juan Antonio Flecha (Sky) and Sandy Casar (FDJ).

The six men raced away and began to climb mountains, Voeckler and Hoogerland originally fighting it out for King of the Mountains points as they crossed each climb, until the pair made a controversial and technically illegal agreement that Voeckler would let Hoogerland take maximum KOM points if Hoogerland would help Voeckler towards the yellow jersey and the stage win. The breakaway were so pre-occupied with trying to stay ahead of the peloton that they heard nothing of the destruction behind them.

Coming down the Col du Pas de Peyrol (Le Puy Mary on the south side), Team Astana were descending fast on the outside, so fast that when they hit the corner a rider ahead of them went down and Team Astana were forced off the road into a deep ditch. Teammates soon carried Alexandre Vinokourov out of the ditch and straight into the back of a waiting Tour ambulance, which took him to hospital to be treated for his fractured femur head. Meanwhile, Omega Pharma-Lotto's leader Jurgen van den Broeck was lying on the road looking sorry for himself, and when placed back on his bicycle by team staff, van den Broeck kicked his leg back over the bike and collapsed onto the ground again, in a clear gesture of 'I'm not doing it, guys. Just get me out of here.' It was a good call by van den Broeck, who will spend several days in the Intensive Care Unit with a collapsed lung, three broken ribs and a broken shoulderblade. Teammate Frederik Willems also pulled out with a broken collarbone, as did Garmin-Cervelo's Dave Zabriskie with a broken wrist.

By agreement at the front of the peloton, a truce was called to allow those affected by the crash who could still ride to catch up to the main peloton. 20 kilometres or so later it was back to work as the peloton now had to try and reel in the breakaway, whose lead had ballooned out to five minutes again when the peloton crashed.

But the breakaway was having trouble of its own. A French TV car, swerving into the road to dodge a tree on the shoulder, drove straight into the breakaway and cleaned up two of the riders, causing Sky's Juan Antonio Flecha to kiss the asphalt and sending Vacansoleil's Johnny Hoogerland flying into a barbed wire fence. The remaining three riders in the breakaway, Niki Terpstra long having been dropped, continued riding, now with diminshed capacity to stay off the front. Flecha was soon back on the bike and being bandaged up by the medics as he tried to return to the breakaway, but his injuries won over and he was soon caught by the peloton.

It took a lot longer before anyone could get eyes on Hoogerland, but a sorrier sight never was seen at the Tour de France. Rips, tears, gashes and gouges all over him, blood flowing from inumerable cracks in the hide and with token white bandages all over, Hoogerland was more than happy to take it easy, falling off the back of the peloton but still managing to finish the stage so as to validate his King of the Mountain points and claim his hard-won jersey. Then it was off to hospital for 33 stitches, even as Flecha was taken in for an X-ray, just to be on the safe side - presuming such a thing really exists in this Tour.

While Flecha and Hoogerland tried to be bigger than their injuries, the breakaway was still flying along and managing to keep a solid five minutes clear of the peloton, a gap which was greater than that separating breakaway leader Voeckler from the yellow jersey-wearer Hushovd, making Voeckler the virtual wearer of the sunny garment. Inspired by this idea, Voeckler pushed on, receiving no help from Casar, struggling to keep up, or even Sanchez, who was conserving energy for his own move.

That move came within 500 metres of the finish, after Voeckler, who had hauled the trio up the final climb unassisted, ducked behind his two companions before darting around to try and win the stage. Sanchez saw him coming and went, and, having more in his legs than the man who had done all the day's pace-making, raced on to win three seconds ahead of the exhausted Voeckler, Casar dragging himself across the line three seconds after.

Garmin-Cervelo soon resigned themselves to the fact that Thor had lost the jersey to Thomas Voeckler and surrendered the pace-making, instead taking it easy and conserving energy for later on. But despite the best efforts of BMC and Leopard Trek, trying to keep their GC riders within a good time gap, they couldn't bridge the gap to the breakaway and instead the front section of the peloton finished almost four minutes behind, leaving Cadel Evans 2:26 down on yellow and Frank and Andy Schleck 2:29 and 2:37 down, respectively. Alberto Contador is now 16th in the general classification, 4:07 from donning the maillot jaune, and with injuries to boot. Contador has a lot of work to do if he wants glory again this year.

Stage 6 - Dinan => Lisieux

Finally, a stage of the Tour that actually went to plan!  No serious crashes, nothing dramatic and difficult in the GC, nobody penalised or disqualified - just another routine day in the biggest and most un-routine bike race in the world.

Comme d'habitude, the most exciting part of the day was the breakaway.  Five riders, including familiar names from Vacansoleil Johnney Hoogerland and Lieuwe Westra, built themselves up a 10-minute lead over the main peloton.  After yesterday's rider massacre on the roads, I think most of the riders, especially the top contenders for the general classification like Andy Schleck and Cadel Evans, were thinking of nothing more than staying safe and getting through the stage, and were happy to let the breakaway have some fun.  The scenery passing from Brittany to Normandy was beautiful too, and the number of chateaux the Tour passed was too high to recall.

 

(I just couldn't resist putting a picture in.  This is the breakaway of Adriano Malori, Leonardo Duque, Lieuwe Westra, Johnny Hoogerland and Anthony Roux passing Mont-Saint-Michel,  an island monastery off the coast of France.)

The weather put something of a constant dampener on the proceedings - literally.  Despite sunny skies at the finish line, the skies above the race were usually grey and exuding copious amounts of water, to the discomfort and danger of the riders.  Mindful of yesterday, everyone was super-careful of their surroundings, but that didn't stop Levi Leipheimer (Radioshack) skidding on a white line-marking and publicly faceplanting.  Only his dignity wounded, he was back on the bike with a potentially damaging time deficit to make up on the peloton.  He eventually finished 1:04 after the winners, possibly putting him out of GC contention and making him the second of Team Radioshack's four GC hopes to go down that path (team leader Janez Brajkovic withdrew from the race yesterday after suffering a broken collarbone in a fall).

The breakaway took the points for the King of the Mountains jersey, Lieuwe Westra taking the first one and Anthony Roux and Johnny Hoogerland each taking three between the two Category 3 climbs, which was enough to put Hoogerland in the lead for the classification and take the jersey from Cadel Evans.  With the peloton putting on the pressure soon afterwards and eating into their lead, Lieuwe Westra and Lampre youngster Adriano Malori decided to go it alone and left the rest of the breakaway behind, where they were soon swallowed up by the peloton.  Westra and Malori held a tenuous lead of only a minute or two, but they held it right up to the 20-kilometre mark, when Malori went again, leaving a resigned Westra for the peloton to find.  Though with a lead of no more than a minute, Malori managed to hold off the hungering wolves until just inside the 3-k mark, earning himself the red number of the stage's most aggressive rider for his stubbornness.

And hungering wolves they were, for the peloton could feel a bunch sprint for their fastest riders coming on.  HTC seemed to finally get their lead-out train working properly, but Mark Cavendish clearly didn't feel he had the legs today, for it was Australia's Gossie (Matthew Goss) who went for the sprint instead, coming a valiant second.  Team Sky's black jerseys were also prominent up the front, and with good reason, for it was their sprinter Edvald Boasson Hagen, just 24 years of age, who took line honours for the first time.  In a fairytale ending, his family were in Lisieux to celebrate the young Norwegian's first stage victory in the Tour de France.  Man of the week Phillipe Gilbert and huge fellow Norwegian Thor Hushovd followed Boasson Hagen across the line, meaning the God of Thunder gets to keep his yellow jersey for another day, as does Phillipe Gilbert with his green.

**In a sad but foreseen endnote, Euskaltel-Euskadi rider Ivan Velasco has indeed withdrawn from this year's Tour, after breaking his collarbone in a nasty fall in Brittany yesterday.  Velasco is the fourth rider to withdraw from the 2011 Tour.

Photograph courtesty of Cycling News at www.cyclingnews.com